Sides of the Pyramid
by Columbus BlueCat
Summary: 19 year old Alex and his three best friends are thrown back in time to Ancient Thebes. But Ancient Egypt holds seperate pasts for each of our heroes. Here they must fight for love, honor, friendship, and their lives. Will they make it?


The Foursome

"No, damnit! NO! This...this can't be right." deep inside the Valley of the Kings, in a very deep pit, in a very hot desert, a very frustrated college student was trying to decipher what she deemed as a bunch of meaningless pictures: hyrogliphics.

"For Pete's sake, Becca, calm down. You're right. This is the spot." said her friend Alex, a young and handsome man of twenty. He knelt down to where Rebecca was, at the bottom of the wall, and scanned it, double checking the order of the symbols. He, his parents Evie and Rick, Rebecca and Ellen Smarnkovitch, and James Emerson were digging for artifacts in ancient Egyption tombs. An adventure for some, a pastime for these people. But on this particular expedition, there was a slight sense of urgency. This was the week before they returned to Bembridge college in England, and over the summer, their Ancient Histroy class was assigned to bring in a peice of the past that was imporant to them and write a paper on it.

And leave it to Alex O'Connell to choose something near impossible, eh? Nonetheless, his three friends were glad to help. Plus, it _was _a chance to go somewhere interesting for the holiday, instead of hanging around home, watching re-runs of old TV shows and eating bag after bag of potato chips, and attending alcohol rich party after alcohol rich party.

"Spot for what?" asked Ellen, who rounded the corner, twirling a peice of her wavy, chocolate brown hair. It was evident from looking at the Smarnkovitch family that Rebecca was indeed, adopted. Rebecca was petite and blonde, while Rebecca and her parents all shared beautiful dark hair and eyes, and were blessed with height. Rebecca's last name was Belhoull, French, English, Italian-she didn't know. There were alternate spellings for each nationality. But, one thing was for certain-her adopted family was most certainly Egyptian, and she most certainly was not.

"The..." Becca paused. This was a characteristic of hers. Becca was a profane person by nature, and Ellen had made her get a "Swear Jar". For every cuss word she used, the jar was a quarter richer. Now that her sister had entered the room, Rebecca was forced to restrain herself from using a word that rhymed with "ducking". "Necklace." she finished, after much concentration.

"Oh!" Exclaimed Ellen, the more reserved of the two girls. She too knelt in the sand. She worked her French manicured nails through the orange earth until it was dead quiet in the silent tomb, and all that could be heard was the sound of Ellen digging, until...

"Ello, my _lovely!_" Exlcaimed a loud, british baritone from somewhere behind the three. The sound of runnning could be heard, but since the burial sight was empty (hopefully) except for the four college students and the two parents, there was nothing for the sound to echo off of, and to be able to tell what direction the footsteps were coming from was near impossible.

They all looked at each other and decided that it must be James. Johnathon, Alex's uncle, was technically _supposed _to be helping with the dig, but knowing John, he was either in one of two places. A bar, surrounded by belly-dancers, or off someplace in search of gold. Or anything that could earn him money for that matter. So Rebecca could only be so surprised when she was being tackled to the ground.

"Quit, James," she commanded, as if scolding a dog for climbing on the furniture. He had now progressed to kissing the top of her head repeatedly and quite enthusiastically and only backed off when she tickled him under his kneecaps. He scurried off and moved on to Ellen, who sat obediently as he kissed her cheek.

"Look...what I've got..." he began as he opened his backpack and dug around for a while, throwing bits of gum wrappers, a couple water bottles, and a camera onto the sandy floor, "for you guys." James then pulled out what appeared to be a very small, gold pyramid, with intricate designs etched into each side. It glinted in the makeshift light provided by mirrors. To say it was beautiful wouldn't be fair...but there was something different, and now, James seemed to be the only one who noticed.

"Yeah?" said Alex, indifferent.

"Well look at it, mate!" cried James, showing it off as if it was something he had spent months building himself. He beamed and crossed his strong arms, very pleased with himself; like a cat who had just placed a dead snake at his master's feet.

"I'm looking. You must be able to get dozens of those in Cairo in the markets. Dad has one on his dashboard. Mum has one on her bookshelf- bloody hell, James." yelled Alex, exasperated. "I have one!"

Ellen, at this moment, busted out laughing. She was with Alex when he'd bought it, and so was James. In fact, it was even James who had pointed it out. And, sadly...James had one himself. She'd spotted it in the trunk of his car a week ago, and now she couldn't help herself. She _had _to laugh. Ellen often found humor in things that others could not. It wasn't that she was odd, it was that everyone else was merely stupid. As her thin frame shook from slight convulsions of happiness, her back fell against the wall. The wall then flipped around, like she'd seen them do in the movie "Clue", and she dissappeared from sight.

"Ell? Oh shit." Rebecca cursed as she felt along the lines of the walls for a possible lever or trap door, anything. She just prayed that her sister hadn't fallen into some pit filled with tarantulas and cobras and scorpions.

"I heard that. One euro." It was instantly confirmed that she hadn't.

"Ooooh, we've raised the price now, haven't we?" teased Alex, who was now inspecting the spot that Ellen had been leading on when she'd, er, fallen through the wall. James had decided to keep digging in the place that Ellen had left off.

The following events happened so simualtaneously that only confusion would ensue.

Event A) Ellen had poked around enough in the adjacent room to discover that she could flip the door by pulling upwards on a very large vace, and the wall began to spin once again.

Event B) James's fingers had reached a box, and as he pulled it out of the ground (with some difficulty; it seemed as though in invisible force was pulling it downwards) , enourmous amounts of sand began falling from the ceiling.

Event C) Alex chose this very exact moment to read the hyrogliphics that Rebecca had been struggling with. "Should the wearer of this necklace enter this room..." He panicked for a second before realizing that Ellen wasn't wearing the necklace, and she was right there. Dumb booby-traps. He would have read further, but-

Event D) Rebecca spotted a shining, blue-black scorpion, as beautiful as it was deadly, preched on Alex's foot, stinger at the ready. She acted on instinct and picked up a dingy golden goblet from the sandy floor and hurled it at the insect.

Results: Ellen reappears as James makes the tomb begin to cave in, and Alex is stopped from discovering a vital peice of information as his life is saved by Becca.

"You guys..." breathed Ellen, on her knees near Alex, "we need to go." More sand was falling from the ceiling and it hit one of the mirrors lighting the tomb; it teetered dangerously. If that mirror fell, they would be plunged into absolute darkness. And if that happened, they might as well start writing their wills now-they would all die.

"No kidding, huh?" Snapped Alex as he grabbed Ellen's hand and pulled her up. Thinking fast she grabbed the box lying on the ground as James swung his emerald green backpack over his shoulder. The whole place was now shaking.

"I'm assuming you know the way out?" Asked Becca, now very panicky. She hadn't really directed that question at anyone in particular, but she needed the reassurance. Of the four of them, she was the weakest when it came to things like this. And she knew it. She sucked at digs. She was a nightmare with hyrogliphics, yet she was the one who was the most intrigued by it all. And yet... she often wondered when and how she would have died if it wasn't for these three constantly having her back.

"Yes!" cried Ellen, leading the pack as they sprinted down a narrow coridor in which they were forced to run single-file. First Ellen, then Alex, who was holding on to Rebecca, with James in the rear. It was silent, except for the rumbling of the falling tomb and the labored breathing of people running for their lives.

It was then that Alex felt a little tightness in his calf muscles. It gave him one last glimmer of hope- they must be running up-hill. And running up-hill meant that they were getting closer to the way out. And sure enough, like a gleaming Exit sign, a white light shone faintly at the end of the tunnel. The sand was falling so thick now that they could scarcely see, let alone allow their lungs to breath properly. But they ran and ran-it seemed like miles until they all broke out into the blinding sunlight and heat of the desert.

They collapsed.

"James..." Rebecca breathed, her chest heaving. Her bangs were stuck to her forhead. She felt as if she'd just run the Boston marathon. Twice. Her face was the same color as her beet-red tank top, making her look like she'd applied way too much blush. "Do...me..." she coughed and wheezed, a lovely sound. "a favor..."

"Anything," he gasped as he rolled over onto his side. His black hair was soaked, and there were sweat-stains covering his shirt. He laughed at bit at the situation.

"Before you dig up any...more...boxes..." she couldn't finish. She just couln't finish. Everything around her was starting to swim. There were two Ell's, two Alex's...everything was blurry. She closed her eyes.

"Read...the inscription...first." Alex and Ellen said at the same time. Well, not exactly the same time. It was the same phrase, but in their tired states, it just sounded like a bunch of jumbled words.

The four of them lay there for at least fifteen minutes. The thought of water and air-conditioning in the Jeep didn't even cross their minds. Rebecca knew she was getting sunburned, and she didn't care. Life stood still for a while, until the sound of hoofs through hot sand disturbed their daydreams.

"Remember, you all, dinner at Zazi's is at seven sharp tonight!" Came the voice of Evelyn O'Connell.

"Ugghhhhhhh."


End file.
